On the nature of the toxic action of electric discharge upon bacillus coli communis

In a recent paper, Thornton has drawn attention to some results he had obtained in experiments upon the bactericidal action of electric discharge. Plates of agar were infected with bacteria of various species, and subjected, under different conditions, to the discharge from an electrified point. The plates of agar were subsequently incubated and observations taken of the development of colonies from the surviving bacteria. From experiments upon these lines he concluded that the ionised air,i. e. the small current (the whole of the current passing from the point was about 4 micro-ampères) produced by his discharge methods, proved fatal after longer or shorter periods to all the species of bacteria subjected to it. This conclusion is of considerable interest, suggesting, as it does, the possibility of electrical treatment of tissue attacked by pathological bacteria, with a view to retarding bacterial action. Our attention was attracted to this paper by the fact that its conclusions seem at variance with some conclusions previously arrived at by one of us in conjunction with Miss E. M. Lee, in an investigation carried out at the University of Bristol, of which only a brief preliminary note has so far been published, pending the further experiments which Miss Lee hopes to be able to carry out.